“Don’t leave me,” Michael said.
“Will you still drive me to my car?”
Michael sighed. He was never great in the mornings. “All right. Just let me piss.”
“I’ve got to get dressed.” Kate went to her room. She took a deep breath, and knocked.
There was no answer. She thought about how well the knots may or may not have held in the intervening hours. If Jamie weren’t a zombie, she’d be pissed off about being tied up all night. Kate would never be able to go to belly dance class again, that was certain. Maybe she’d go to jail for assault and battery, or whatever it was when you tied someone up and then didn’t untie them. Unless maybe they could laugh it all off. “Jamie?” she whispered. “Are you all right?” Kate opened the door a crack, just enough to look in. There might have been a person in the bed, underneath the bedclothes.
Kate remembered that she had some clothes in the dryer. She must have gotten her pajamas there last night. She selected a decently revealing top, her Hawaiian-print TJ’s shirt, and jeans. She calmed down in the bathroom, washing her hands and face in the sink. She popped some store-brand ibuprofen, drinking water from the tap as it spilled over her palm. In the mirror she looked a little worse for wear. She ought to put on some lipstick.
They got into Michael’s car, a late-nineties Buick. He’d been proud of finding it for $900, though he’d bitched about having to get a new radiator and new brakes almost immediately. Michael wore a hoody against the morning chill. Kate realized she probably should have brought a jacket, but the car was already started. He wouldn’t drive her to her car if he wasn’t OK with her leaving, she thought. She put her bag on the floor. She’d cleaned it out recently, discarding the unnecessary socks and gym clothes and receipts. Now it held nothing but a book and yesterday’s water bottle. “Sorry to leave you with this,” she said as he drove. “I need to go in for a few hours. You know. Plus I don’t want to leave my car on the street.”
He gave her a sidelong look.
“It’ll be ticketed. It’s Berkeley. I’ll be back as soon as I can. If we can keep everyone separated, we should be safe.” She touched his knee, under the steering wheel.
“How long will you be out?”
“Um, not very long,” Kate said. “Maybe a few hours. I’d call in, but I at least have to go and do the ordering. If TJ’s runs out of wine, I’ll be the one to blame. But I’ll get it done, then take off early. Go home sick, or whatever. Plus, with any luck, you’ll be back before anyone else even wakes up. They’ll listen to you.” She felt sick, lying to him.
“Sure,” Michael said. “Probably it was a blood sugar problem. They just need a good breakfast. How do you know that the whole world isn’t full of them?” He didn’t have to say the Z word.
“Left here,” Kate said. “And right after the light.” A moment passed in silence. “Just up here, see my car?” He stopped his car, put it in park.
“Be careful,” he said.
“You, too.” She kissed Michael’s cheek. Normally she wasn’t this affectionate with him, but it seemed like he could use it. And after last night, she owed him something.
He reached for the back of her head, trying to bring her mouth to his. She pulled away, holding his hand against her cheek. He smelled like the guys she’d gone to high school with in Wisconsin, some combination of cheap deodorant, soap, and Northern ancestry. Against her will, she’d always had some chemistry with him. That must have been why she’d let him fumble up against her. She’d needed it, last night; they both had needed something to remind them they were still alive. After she came, though, it had been weird.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to touch him. But a quick tussle under the blanket wouldn’t have been enough. She’d wanted to take him to bed. Have him tie her up the way she’d tied up Jamie, and fuck her until they were both sore. She wanted to know what it would feel like, with him. She couldn’t figure out how to tell him, then.
“About last night—” she said. She let go of his hand. “Sorry I was so drunk,” she said. “I’m sure we made some bad decisions.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, looking away.
“Did you lock the house?” she asked.
“I shut the door.” He was trying to make a joke.
She smiled and got out of the car without touching him again. If they got together, they’d break up, and then she’d be out a place to stay as well as a friend, she reminded herself. She’d been through that before. Knowing it didn’t make her want him less. She might have already fucked it all up, with last night. Attraction, by its nature, is unstable. Sooner or later, you settle into a lower energy state. The nervous spark goes away, and the love gets more and more efficient until you barely notice one another. Or, as happened more often in her relationships, things got awkward and that meant not seeing one another again.
“See you soon.” She waved.
The street was empty. The guy was gone. Still, Kate looked around to be sure as she walked to her car, a silver 1999 Focus she called Focahontas. Her finger cymbals were still on the sidewalk. Kate picked them up and got in her car. She took off her TJ’s shirt and tossed it into the back seat, along with the cymbals. It occurred to her that she should call home, call her parents or her brother and see whether there were any zombies in the suburbs of Madison. She talked herself out of making the call. No time, she couldn’t find her Bluetooth headset, and what would she say, anyway? She wanted to drive forever. Go somewhere safe, if there was anywhere safe. She wanted someone to take care of her. She might as well see Walter.
The car radio was broken, and had been for several years, so she tried to use her driving time to meditate. Instead she got lost, something she did regularly, and nearly always in the warehouse district. She finally found 880, and drove towards the airport. Nothing looked amiss: people were out, traffic was normal, pedestrians were walking around. Nobody was eating anyone else. She thought about texting Michael and telling him as much, but he must have seen it for himself. The lack of zombies. She needed to clear her head; get away from it all.
Nearing the Coliseum, she remembered that she was looking for a Holiday Inn—that was the meeting place for the Zeppelin tour. She and Walter had laughed at that when he’d first brought it up. The company offered something so extravagant and expensive as Zeppelin rides, and they couldn’t even run a shuttle from the parking lot of a Marriott.
She saw Walter standing near the hotel’s front door. The sun was out and it was a beautiful spring day. The smell of the breeze alone was enough to make one feel lighter. She parked her car and walked over to him. Walter was fiftyish, starting to lose his hair. He was dressed in a suit, as always. Probably something name brand, an Armani or Brooks Brothers, Kate couldn’t tell. She’d met him after answering his ad on Craigslist a few months earlier.
“You won’t believe the evening I had last night,” she said in greeting. She kissed him on both cheeks, European style, then thought better of it. Her headache must be due to last night’s booze, but she didn’t want to pass on a cold if she was getting sick. The first time Walter had kissed her, she’d caught a cold but hadn’t realized it yet. She’d felt guilty once she developed symptoms. But when she saw him a few days later, he hadn’t caught the cold, so she figured he wouldn’t, and she let him kiss her. High on DayQuil, she didn’t cough or sneeze, so she hoped there was no harm. For all she knew, he’d given her the cold in the first place.
“You having fun again without me, Katie Kay?” he asked. “Let’s walk.”
She slipped her hand in his pocket as they strolled through the parking lot. “Not so much fun as I would have had with you.” In his pocket there were some crisp folded bills. She withdrew them, and pocketed them without looking. That was part of their deal.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Times is interesting. Michael had a party last night, got kind of wild, but I wasn’t about to miss out on seeing you.” As soon as she’d said it, she wonder
ed whether it was impolite to talk about parties that the other person hadn’t been invited to. Walter knew who Michael was, though they would never meet; Kate talked about her friends. She remembered that she’d forgotten to put on lipstick. It was a bit common to put it on in public, but maybe Walter wouldn’t mind. It wasn’t as if they were eating at a fancy restaurant or anything. She found a tube in her pocket and ran it over her mouth.
“Is that code for a hangover?” There was concern in his voice, as well as real affection. Kate often had the feeling that he was going to ruffle her hair, or fake punch her on the arm, one of those Leave it to Beaver kind of gestures, but he never did.
“A little,” she said, telling the truth. She wished she were drunk again. She shouldn’t have left the house. It was too late to go back. “Also I hooked up with my belly dance instructor. She made the first move. I’d never been with a woman before. She has a tattoo of an Ouroboros around her hips.” Kate nearly said had a tattoo but checked herself in time.
He raised his eyebrows. “Put your hand back in my pocket and tell me all about it,” he said. “I didn’t know you did belly dance.”
“Let’s just go get a room,” she said on impulse. “Hang out. Order up room service. It doesn’t have to be here; we can go somewhere else. I just need to see you. Take it easy,” she finished. She realized that she had failed to run away.
“I’ve been planning this for weeks, darling, you know that. You can see me just fine while we cruise the friendly skies.”
It had been worth a shot. She thought of the money in her pocket. She could live on her Trader Joe’s pay just fine, but the deal with Walter offered something else. Still, she had a few hundred in her bank account, which would not get her very far, and only as long as there was still electricity and ATMs worked. Where, really, was she going to run to? She couldn’t bring herself to tell Walter about the zombies. He’d think she was crazy. She wondered if she was crazy. It would explain a lot.
“There’s a shuttle that will pick us up in twenty minutes or so,” Walter said. He led her towards the edge of the parking lot.
Kate gave him an embellished account of the previous night as they waited, out of habit, including the part about tying Jamie up, at her request, but skipping all of the zombie business. It was easier than coming up with something out of her past, and it made him happy. They stood between two parked cars. His pocket was empty now, but the lining was smooth and thin. High thread count. No underwear. She fingered his penis through the lining as they stood. He made an appreciative noise, and she could feel the first stirrings of an erection. It made Kate feel awkward, being in public like this, but it was also kind of fun. And fun, she knew, was what she provided. She touched him, thinking of how she’d failed to touch Michael. She should have pushed Michael away when he first started; should have known what he was trying to do to her, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t wanted to.
“I’ve booked a suite for us at the Claremont for tonight,” Walter said. He kissed her neck. “Dinner, and a professional massage at the best spa there is, how about it? The wife’s out of town.”
Kate took her hand out of his pocket. He might have meant that he would stay overnight with her. They’d never woken up together before. On another day, she might have accepted, out of curiosity. “Oh. I’ve kind of got plans after this,” she said. She wanted to go home.
“I mean I have class. I’m really sorry. Forgive me.” She’d told Walter she was a college student. In poetry, for an MFA at the prestigious Mills College in Oakland. She figured that sounded romantic; the truth was that she’d moved to California to work for a year and qualify for in-state tuition, and that had been almost four years ago. He’d recited the whole first stanza of “The Canonization” by John Donne before she’d realized he was quoting a poem; she’d Googled it later. She’d also told him that MFA stood for “Master of Fucking Around.” But maybe she should tell him what she really was: crew at Trader Joe’s, doing stock and running registers. Her largest drawer, on a Saturday before Christmas, was almost eight grand, three of it in cash. Not that three grand in unmarked bills would get anyone very far, but that she was trusted with it. She kissed his neck.
“Dear, you tease,” he said. He put an arm around her.
“And you like it. How about I do you like Bloom, while we stand here.” Kate put her hand back into his pocket without waiting for permission. She worked him efficiently; she knew his buttons. He gasped when he came. Kate enjoyed that; enjoyed her power over him, and the way he wanted to give it to her. He’d have to get the trousers cleaned.
“Zeppelin tour, over here,” a voice called. It issued from a perky figure holding a clipboard; she introduced herself as one of the pilots.
They held hands as they walked to join the group. Walter favored his left leg, avoiding the wet spot. Kate didn’t say anything, but exulted secretly. Hand jobs always reminded her of that Yeats poem. Mad fingers playing on a place of stone. Or something like that.
They were the last ones aboard the minibus, which took them to the north field of the Oakland airport. She looked out the window as they drove, conscious of Walter’s arm on the back of her seat. It was a clear day, and she saw no signs of zombies. She wanted very much to believe that there was no such thing as zombies, and therefore she wasn’t a bad person for abandoning her friends. Other people in the minibus were chatting, looking forward to the Zeppelin ride.
The minibus parked. Walter got out first, and held his hand up for Kate. He liked to play the gentleman. Kate took his hand as she stepped out, not because she needed it, but because it would please him. He offered his hand to all of the women, and several took him up on it.
The Zeppelin was smaller than Kate had expected, with a tiny cabin underneath the white blimp of a hull. A three-step staircase had been set up so that everyone could board. There were scarcely a dozen passengers, plus a flight attendant and two pilots. Two women stood side by side, their pinkies interlaced, necks craned, looking up at the ship. A girl with pink hair was telling a story to an older man. A silver-haired couple stood in their Sunday best; the old guy even had a carnation in his lapel. These people all smelled nice. Kate told herself that she wasn’t being stupid and selfish; that this wasn’t exactly the wrong thing to be doing. She boarded with the rest of the group. The cabin had a single row of airplane seats on either side, as well as a cute little fake-leather loveseat in the back for when they were at altitude. There were lots of big windows, like the viewing car on a train. This was going to be cool. Sure, she would have to go home and deal with the zombies, afterwards, but she could let down her guard for a while.
Kate sat behind Walter, watching the ground crew handle the ropes. She examined the cute little safety card that detailed the two rows of seats and the two exits, with a few standard safety rules about seatbelts and following crew instructions. “Passenger Briefing” was translated into German as “Passageierbelehrung.” German was so not one of the sexy languages.
“Hi! So I need you to pretend to pay attention during the safety instructions,” said their flight attendant, a boyish figure with spiky black hair straight out of anime. He introduced himself as Matt.
The Zeppelin was truly novelty transportation; it would go in a circle around San Francisco, and land again where it started. As they took off, Kate was astonished at how quiet the ship was. Sure, there was the buzz of the engine, but they might as well have been on a lawnmower for all the noise it made. There wasn’t the pressure of a normal plane, pushing you into your seat. She felt like she was floating. The airship would reach a cruising altitude of about 1,300 feet and circle the bay for an hour. Walter had said it was almost eight hundred bucks for the two of them. “Eight as in great,” he’d written in the email. “Pity there aren’t Royal Air Force codes for numbers, like ‘A as in Alpha’—‘Seven as in heaven?’” The tickets were more expensive than she was, she’d thought. She hadn’t counted it, but she knew she now had at least three hundred dollars in her po
cket. Part of her did wish that he’d skipped the Zeppelin ride and just given her the money, but, still. She wasn’t that kind of girl.
And, more importantly, it was a Zeppelin. The only passenger Zeppelin in operation in the entire States, which was pretty cool. This would be a nice way to impress anyone, Kate thought. They would circle over the city, the Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz, and Angel Island, and be back on the ground in time for a late lunch. Through the window she could see the coastline of San Francisco, and the rolling green hills of Marin to the north.
After they’d reached cruising altitude, and Matt told the group they could leave their seats, Kate and Walter found a spot standing at a window facing south, looking out at the water, with the shoreline of the peninsula stretching beyond. Walter put an arm around her and kissed her ear. She liked that he wasn’t afraid to make public displays of affection. He said he had an open relationship with his wife; she’d even talked to a woman on the phone who’d said it was fine with her.
“Up here, it seems so peaceful,” Walter said. “Quiet.”
Kate leaned into him. He was warm. For a while, at least, she was powerless. Safe, and contained. The world would have to take care of itself. She tried to relax into the feeling.
“This is nice. It’s good to get away,” she said. She decided that perhaps she hadn’t sounded appreciative enough. “All my friends will be jealous when I tell them where I was. If I tell them,” she said.
“And what will you tell them?” Though their relationship was semi-secret, Walter had said he didn’t mind if she talked about him with her friends. He’d told her that she probably would have done it anyway. Which made her want to keep it secret. Maybe he’d done that on purpose.
The Loving Dead Page 5